Azaouad, Azawad, or Azawagh is the collective non-officially recognized name for the main Tamashek-speaking parts of northern Mali, northern Niger, and part of southern Algeria. Azawad is mainly made up of Sahelian and Saharan vast flat lands inhabited by Tuareg nomads. It does not correspond to any single administrative region of Mali, Niger, or Algeria, but it includes portions of the Kidal Region of Mali and the Tahoua Region and Agadez Region of Niger, and large portions of southern Algeria.[1] Azawad has a strong and distinctive Tuareg character, different from the official identities and characters of the central governments of Mali, Niger, and Algeria. Azawad emerged recently as a geopolitical issue due to the recent separatist movement, the Mouvement Populaire pour la Libération de l'Azawad (MPLA), that aspires to establish an independent Azawad republic with a Tuareg idenitity.[2]
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The Azawad has historically referred to the dry river valley, which once carried a Northern arm of the Niger River. The Azawad river ran some 1600 km in prehistoric times (drying finally after the Neolithic Subpluvial: 7th to 4th millennium BCE ), and created a basin of some 420000 km². Its valley, which geologists call the Iullemmeden Basin, forms in the western foothills of the Aïr Mountains curves through the Sahara Dessert of modern Niger and Mali, meeting the Niger near Gao. It is bordered to the east by the Adrar des Ifoghas massif of modern Mali and Algeria, to the south by the Niger river in the west and the Ader Douchi hills in the east, and depending upon interpretation, runs north to the southern foothills of the Hoggar massif.[3]
In Mali, the name Azawak is used for the area, while in Niger, Azawagh is often used. In Niger, Azawagh generally includes the towns of Abalagh (Abalak), In Tibaraden (Tchin-Tabaraden), Tiliya, In Gal, Tabalaq, a village where the sole lake of the region is located.
Azawad Region is generally flat, its 80.000 square kilometers forming vast, arid plains broken by occasional ridges . The scarps separate a series of sandstone plateaus, the highest of which is reaching an elevation of 500 meters (1,640 ft), often rich in minerals, rise above the plateaus. Approximately three-fourths of Azawad area is desert or semidesert. As a result of extended, severe drought, the desert has been expanding since the mid-1960s.
The area is dominated by the Kel Tamashek populations, as well as some nomadic Arab-ancestry tribes including Hassaniyya-speakers (also called Azawagh Arabs, not to be confused with Niger's Diffa Arabs) in the northwest border and the Wodaabe Fula in Niger. Azawagh is the centre for the Iwellemeden Kel Denneg federation.[4]
In Moorish society musicians occupy the lowest caste, iggawin. Musicians from this caste used song to praise successful warriors as well as their patrons. Iggawin also had the traditional role of messengers, spreading news between villages. In modern Mauritania, professional musicians are paid by anybody to perform; affluent patrons sometimes record the entertainment, and they, rather than the musicians themselves, are then considered to own the recording. Traditional instruments include an hourglass-shaped four-stringed lute called the tidinit and the woman's kora-like ardin. Percussion instruments include the tbal (a kettle drum) and daghumma (a rattle).
Traditionally, there has been some resentment of central Malian control and several separatist or other rebel groups have been active in the region, notably in the civil war in Mali of the early 1990s. In this period, groups claiming independence for the area, and also for the broader Azawagh and Ayr region first appeared.
Some of these movements have claimed it as part of a wider pan-Saharan Touareg homeland, while others have been content to demand improved services and/or autonomous status for the region. In late 2006, a flare-up in fighting in the Kidal Region was ended by Algerian mediation between the central government and Touareg rebels.
As Mali gained independence in 1960, Azawad become a part of Mali territory With independence, numbers of indigenous Black African peoples (soudanais or Haratines) And white peoples or Azawadis ( Arab and Touareg ) were lived peacefully in this State, with their brother citizens in Mali.
Many of these inhabitants (Azawadis) became clerks, soldiers, and administrators. By increasing pressure to Arabize many aspects of Malian’s life specially their own Region (Azawad) , such as education.
A schism developed between those Moors who consider Azawad as a part of Arab countries, and those who seek a dominant role for the non-Moorish peoples even in this region, with various models for containing the country's cultural diversity suggested, but none implemented successfully. This ethnic discord was evident during intercommunal violence that broke out in 12/05/ 1991 (the " 1991 Events") , directly after killing of about 50 men of Arab civilians , Azawadis considered this event as a racism politic against them, a big assassination was happened and a lot of innocent people died from both sides , the Azawadi people left their home to stay in refugies mainly in Mauritania , Algeria and Burkina Faso.
The discovery of oil in 2006 in Azawad territory and the War anti-Terorrism specially after repports indicated presence of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in this area, these issues will open the page of the crisis (conflict between Government of Mali and the Azawadi rebels) calling for an independent territory in their own region, or at least their rights in equality and dignity according to human rights organization, Azawadi people were victims of terror the Ex-Mali Government and need for help to live normal life even after their return to Mali after the agreement between Revolunist of Azawad and Mali Government.
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